The Road to Paradise
by Griselda Banks
Summary: Oneshot. An alternate ending to the anime, the way I thought it was going to end. Rated for blood.


**Author's Note: I was more satisfied with Wolf's Rain's ending than most animes', but I still wasn't completely satisfied with the cyclical nature of it. Being a Westerner and a Christian, I suppose that's inevitable. This is my version of the ending to the anime. Please tell me what you think of it.**

The snow was falling thicker than ever, cold and soft and white, coating the blood-spattered ground with a feathery blanket. A wolf lay on his side in the thickening snow, breathing raggedly as snowflakes covered the many gashes that stained his pure white fur. Clutched in his teeth was a small flower, its smooth petals the same color as the snow. The wolf's eyes were mere slits of gold, staring out at the still, empty whiteness. The pain had receded somewhat, dulled in the numbing cold, but he could still tell he was dying. Everything was cold, cold and white and soft like freezing bedcovers. He couldn't move, could hardly think, but all the same he clung onto life with all his might. His teeth clenched around the frail stem of the flower in his mouth, and the slits of his golden eyes slid shut.

As though that was a signal, the ground began to shake underneath the wolf. The ice began to crack, exploding in glittering splinters. The moon, crimson in the sky overhead, began to drop thick drops of blood onto the earth far below. Like rain from the heavens, wolf's blood fell on the twisted ground below. And wherever the drops of deep red blood landed, a patch of white flowers sprang up. One large drop fell with a splash on top of the white wolf lying on his side. The flowers sprouted up around him, and the flower he clutched in his mouth stretched its roots into the ground as well.

Slowly, the wolf's eyes began to open again. For several long moments, he simply lay in the patch of flowers, lounging in the envigorating scent of the white blossoms. But they were begging him to stand, so he slowly got to his feet. Looking back over his body, he found that there were no signs of his wounds, no trace of blood on his pure white fur. When he turned his head to look forward, he saw a pathway made of those white flowers, a pathway that stretched on forever and ever, leaping up into the sky and fading out of sight. The wolf closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath of the heavily scented air, and bounded forward.

The journey along the path of flowers seemed to take years, and at the same time no time at all. Great drops of wolf's blood were dropping down to either side of the path, and the white wolf could see out of the corners of his vision the whole earth collapsing beneath him. Entire continents sunk under the sea and explosions ripped apart the mountains. He had known for a long time that the world was ending, but he hadn't expected it to be quite like this.

At the crest of one of the rises in the undulating path, the wolf stopped and looked behind him. To his surprise, many people were ascending the path of flowers behind him. Some were wolves with the appearance of humans, but most were not. The wolf couldn't understand it; there was the scarred wolf he had challenged once, walking right beside a rather round boy who wore an orange shirt and hardly ever talked. There was a girl with long black hair and bright, dark eyes; a boy with curly orange hair, who was missing a few teeth; and what was unmistakably one of Jagara's soldiers. "How can all these people be going to Paradise?" the wolf asked aloud, standing up on his human legs. "I thought Paradise was only for the wolves."

"That's right," said a deep voice behind him. "All these people have the wolf inside them, though some of them never knew it until now."

The white wolf froze and slowly turned around, hardly daring to believe his ears. But there he was, standing tall and proud against the bright glow of the path ahead. "Tsume!"

The silver-haired man smiled. "I knew we would meet up again in Paradise."

"Hey, Kiba!" cried a young boy with a red shirt who stepped out from behind Tsume.

"Toboe!" Kiba cried, taking an involuntary step forward. "But...But you were..."

"You're right," came another voice as a young man in a yellow sweatshirt appeared as well. "We're dead. But what did you expect? This is Paradise, after all."

"Yes." At last, Kiba smiled. "This is Paradise."

The others stood aside as Kiba walked steadily forward into the blinding white light that led to Paradise, and then followed him. The other people who streamed all along the road to Paradise stepped one by one into the shining white light. The crimson moon sank into the sea, the road of flowers fell away, and the world was no more. But the people who had stepped into Paradise forgot their world, for what they were facing was ten times more beautiful and precious than anything in their old world. As Kiba looked around him with his friends on either side, he thought it looked a little like the fake Paradise he had stumbled across once before, a Paradise that was only a dream, a Paradise where time stood still. This was not such a Paradise; for though time rolled on, there were no endings, no deaths, no goodbyes; and each moment was more beautiful than the last.


End file.
